Manhattan Beach Home Sales Smash Expectations In July

There was widespread belief in a national housing slump following expiration of first-time home buyer tax credits in the second quarter of 2010. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimated a 30% drop in sales, and our firm came up with a similar estimate while analyzing Manhattan Beach pending home sales in June.  We are happy to announce that the market beat our expectations and continued to rally through the month of July.

Manhattan Beach home prices are up 9% comparing closed sales over the last 3 months to the same period in 2009. A total of 34 properties sold, 29 of which were single family residences (SFR’s), and 5 condominiums. The story gets better when we look at July 2010 sales versus the same month last year: median prices per square foot (SQFT) have risen a dramatic 20%!

Here’s a snapshot of the month of July:

Fewer properties sold in July of 2010 compared to July of 2009, but median and average sales prices jumped for both SFR’s and condos. Average days on market (DOM) for SFR’s dropped from 82 to 57, while condo DOM remained relatively constant, inching up only 4 days from 118 to 122.

Manhattan Beach real estate is extremely dependent on neighborhood, so the following breakout is illustrative:

The big takeaway is that all Manhattan Beach neighborhoods show price per SQFT increases over the last year. This is even better than June housing sales where 2 of the 6 Manhattan Beach neighborhoods showed price drops over the last year.

It is possible that Manhattan Beach has yet to feel the impact of housing subsidies disappearing, or it is fully plausible that this affluent city never will.